


Fragmentations

by ponderinfrustration



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: AU, Femslash, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Introspection, Multiship, Post-Canon, Reunions, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-01-16 22:19:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 48
Words: 21,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12351687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderinfrustration/pseuds/ponderinfrustration
Summary: A collection of ficlets which are not substantial enough to be fics in their own right. Also extracts from some existing 'verses of mine. 40th piece - Erik wonders if he and the Daroga are bad people for loving each other





	1. Babysitting Duties

He thought it was damn unnerving the first time he realised that they were Erik’s eyes looking out at him from a little boy’s face. Somehow, blue changed to gold without his ever noticing, but they are undoubtedly Erik’s eyes.

He supposed, afterwards, that that was the only way it could have been. Of course the child would inherit his father’s eyes.

Still, it could have been worse. He might have gotten more than the eyes.

Raoul cannot help it if he is relieved that Konstin has an ordinary face. From the moment Christine told him she was expecting the question was on his mind. How would the baby’s face be? Followed, swiftly afterwards, by _please God let him have Christine’s face_.

It is not Christine’s face, nor even Christine’s father’s. But it is far from Erik’s face either. Raoul only ever saw it a handful of times at most, but still he doubts if he could ever forget _that_ face. No. Konstin has, what Raoul supposes, may have been something _similar_ to Erik’s face, if Erik had had a normal face. High cheekbones, noticeable even though he isn’t even five yet, a straight nose, bowed lips. There’s a softness about the features that is reminiscent of Christine, and they are Christine’s dimples.

It was more than he expected, that he could love Erik’s son. He knew he would care for him, if only out of duty and for Christine’s sake. But to love the son of his rival as if he were his own? That seemed like it was asking too much, a hundred times too much.

Until the moment Christine smiled at him, with tired eyes after her ordeal, and eased the baby into his arms. And Raoul looked down at the tiny peacefully-sleeping newborn boy, and felt that tug in his heart. And he knew. From that moment he knew.

He looks down, now, at the peacefully-sleeping child in his arms. He’ll never understand what it is that leads Konstin to always fall asleep on top of him, but it must be something like that little tug in his own heart, some yearning to be close. Whatever the cause, sleep on top of him he does, every time, and looking at him now it is difficult to believe that this is the boy who, only a handful of hours ago, insisted he was going to build the Palais Garnier out of matchsticks and glue.

(Thankfully they only had one box of matchsticks. Raoul does _not_ fancy the idea of trying to clean glue off a four year old’s hands.)


	2. Accidental Whiskey

Christine's brow furrows as she sips her tea, and Erik is troubled by it. Normally she quite likes his tea, enjoys the flavours of the lemon, ginger, honey, and cinnamon blending together. They do mingle in a lovely fashion, as if they were made to be used in combination. But Christine never frowns as she sips the tea he makes her. Never.

It's on the tip of his tongue to ask her if there is anything the matter, but she inhales deeply from the cup before he can frame it and takes another sip. Of course, it is hot. She is wise to sip it.

Part of him longs to smile at her, but he holds himself in check. If he smiles at the girl he might only frighten her. The distortion of his lips makes for a terrible sight.

But those lips insight on twitching, refuse to obey his command to stay still, and bringing his cup to his lips to spare her the sight, he realises his oversight.

His grave, terrible oversight.

He sips his tea to confirm it, and finds it altogether too smooth. There is no burn, no sting that there should be after he added whisky to it.

And he distinctly remembers adding whisky.

As if to confirm his discovery, Christine giggles in a most uncharacteristic manner.

His throat dries, and he sets his cup down, reaches across the gap between them, and prises her cup from her grasp.

"What are you doing?!" she cries, lurching forward as he takes a sip of her tea and- ah! There. He did indeed mix up the cups. Damn fool he is! He ought to be more careful!

A soft finger pressed to his lips draws him back from thoughts of his error, and he finds Christine blinking at him. She opens her mouth, and frowns, and then—

"Erik? Have you ever been kissed?"

He sucks in a breath, cold sweat breaking out on his skin, and before he can answer, her lips, her gentle, sweet, whisky-tasting lips, are pressed to his own.

For a long time afterwards, Erik has no thought at all.


	3. Skywriting

“I’ll only marry you if you propose to me by skywriter!” It sounded ridiculous, even to Karim’s own ears, but he was not in possession of his senses at the time and was liable to make any number of ridiculous suggestions.

(It was the absinthe that did it.)

(When in doubt, always blame the absinthe.)

The night moved on, and they talked of other things, and held each other close for a time until Karim dozed off with Erik still nestled in his arms.

And in the morning, there was no word of marriage or skywriting. There was only the splitting headache that made Karim feel as if his head was stuffed with cotton, fit to overflow or burst, and he was so heavy with it that even sitting up was a battle.

Erik brought him water, and aspirin, and lay cool cloths on his forehead, and was just generally attentive in a way that is normally unknown to Erik, though there lurked a glint in his eye that suggested he was piecing thoughts together.

A week later, Karim found it.

It was a phone call. A phone call from Darius, who saw it before he did while out shopping, and which urged Karim to _get outside now you need to be here_.

And Karim thought there was something wrong, thought something had happened or was about to happen (it is so impossible to know and terrible things do happen even on quiet Paris boulevards), and he slung his jacket on because even though the weather is dry it is damned cold these days, and rushed outside.

Rushed outside and down the street and found himself standing before the Palais Garnier with what seemed like half of Paris and a gaggle of photographers, staring up at the sky, the words written there as plain as anything.

_Marry me Karim?_

And Karim got weak, standing there, felt the blood drain away out of his head and he swayed on the spot until a young blonde woman noticed and reached over and steadied him with her hand on his arm.

“Are you okay, Monsieur?” Her accent was not French, not anything he had ever heard before, and all he could do was stare at her, his mouth agape trying to think.

“I—I—I’m Karim,” he whispered, his lips thick and her eyes widened.

“And are—will you say yes?”

_Will you say yes?_

_Marry me Karim?_

_…propose to me by skywriter!_

His heart fluttered, and he swallowed, nodding. “I never thought he’d go through with it,” he whispered, and felt his lips twitch into a grin. “But I will. I will say yes.”

“Well that’s good to hear.” The voice behind him was soft, and he caught a flash of golden eyes and the false nose he had watched Erik put on that morning, and then he was throwing his arms around that neck and pulling his head down (why does the man have to be so damned tall?) and when their lips met there was no need for any more questions.


	4. Invitation

She does not intend to ask him. Afterwards, she does not even remember considering asking him. And yet, the words spring fully formed from her lips.

“Come home with me.”

He stares at her, those strange golden eyes so unnerving, and blinks slowly. “Come…home with you?”

The uncertainty in his voice only strengthens her resolve, a resolve that was not there moments ago. Or, perhaps it was there. Perhaps it has been there all along, waiting for this moment.

Waiting for him.

Well, _of course_ it’s been waiting for him. So many things, it seems, have been waiting for him. Her heart, her nerves, the numbers newly-unfurled on her wrist. She glances down at them, as if they might have disappeared in the last few moments, but no. They are still there. Three years, three months, three weeks, three days, three hours, ten minutes, fifteen seconds. The minutes have changed, have started to eat into the three hours so that they are not three hours anymore, but two.

No time like the present, and the way his fingers massage his own wrist only confirms that fact.

“Yes,” and she forces a smile, which comes easier than she expected. “Come home with me. You need to meet Mamma.”


	5. Realisation

It comes to him slowly, piece by piece drifting before him. The flash of warm brown eyes. The slight twitch of lips. The way a lock of blonde hair falls over a forehead. The way that same blonde hair glows faintly auburn in certain lighting. Narrow hips that he has wrapped his hands around. Delicate fingers curling around his own. The fluttering of his heart, the muffled fluttering of another heart pressed against him. Lips on his throat pressing soft kisses and his own gasped breaths, fingers twined in his hair.

So many images, memories, each one treasured, held close. And his heart twists remembering those warm eyes with a hard edge of worry, a hand laid on his forehead. But that is long ago, and they are changed men since that.

_I think I’m in love._

The thought is a gentle one, whispered from the depths of his mind.

Love. It would—it is not such a shocking suggestion. Part of him has suspected it for some time. Suspected it ever since he clawed his way back out of his own mind, and saw that face, that perfect, wonderful face, looking back at him. If it is not love what else could it be? A passing infatuation?

No. He has been infatuated before. And this is so much stronger than that, so much more powerful.

Love. True, actual love. Stirring his heart and making his lips tingle and his fingers ache to pull that body close, that body that fits against his own so well, as if they are two parts carved out of one whole.

Konstin’s eyes flicker open, and he sighs, smiling. Antoine’s head is nestled in against the curve of his shoulder, his hand resting on Konstin’s stomach and Konstin can feel that hand warm even through his shirt, the very touch of it making him tingle.

Love.

He inclines his head and presses his lips gently to Antoine’s hair, and Antoine nuzzles in deeper, half-asleep and held safe. Love. Yes, it must be.


	6. Morning Light

He has always lived in darkness, in the shadows of the night. It has always been safer that way, more secure for one such as him. Even in Persia he clung to the corners, to the wall, turned his face away even when it was so bright that it could have blinded him.

But now. Now it is different. Now the whole world has changed and not only is the daylight safe but it is welcoming. The coming of dawn is no longer the signal for him to hide in sleep, but instead brushes his eyelids with its soft light and wakes him.

And he has Rahim to thank for it. Dear, wonderful Rahim. The delicate morning light casts his face in a soft glow, and all Erik can do is reach out and trace his fingers lightly over those beloved features. Rahim does not wake, merely sighs, and Erik’s heart flutters.

Oh, how much he missed out on doing this, how many more mornings like this they could have had if they had only worked up the nerve sooner.

No matter. They have each other now, forever, if Rahim will have him, and that is what matters. Not what might have been, not any more. Only what is.

And the morning is beautiful when Erik can look over and find Rahim sleeping next to him.

“I love you,” he whispers, trying the words on for size, words the like of which he never thought he would ever speak. Rahim snuffles slightly, and Erik smiles. The words are comfortable, fit his tongue as if they were always meant to, and he tries them again, deciding that he rather likes the way they roll. “I love you.”


	7. A Study in Mannerisms

She must confess she is captivated by her husband’s facial expressions. It is not a face like any other, that is undoubtedly true. Cheeks too high and hollow and features too sharp, and that is discounting the, ah, _issue_ of his nose. But it is simply so expressive, so _fascinating_ , that sometimes she does find herself staring.

She tries not to. Oh, how she _tries_. He hates to think that he might be any sort of a spectacle, but in truth she just finds it so beautiful the way he uses his face. Purses his lips, quirks his eyebrows (and he has marvellous eyebrows, strangely bushy when one considers his almost-baldness), tilts his head and frowns. When one looks past the nose, he is really quite attractive.

There was a time when she thought she could never think such a thing about Erik. But then she saw the thing she had been too blind to see before, the gentleness he keeps hidden beneath that hard exterior. He can be so craggy, so _damned_ difficult, but then there are those other times, those other lovely times…

She sighs, and smiles a little to herself. He catches her eye, that frown between his eyes again, but she shakes her head and he goes back to his newspaper, his reading glasses still in place.

The reading glasses make him very dashing, even if they are secured around his head and cannot sit on his nose.

Sometimes he is the most manic man she has ever known, dashing about with his coattails flapping behind him, fingers racing across organ keys, or sawing with the bow on the violin. And he looks at her with his eyes so focused, so far away and wild, that she is not certain he really sees her.

But then there are these other times, the times like now, when he is still, and at ease, and can sit in silence across from her for hours, with one leg gracefully crossed across the other. And these are, undoubtedly, the times that she loves him the most.

Tonight, she will take him in her arms and kiss his cheek gently, and he will smile, and hold her. But for now, she goes back to her crochet, and sneaks glances at him, her heart content with his simply being here.


	8. Laid Bare

“Curse you, you little lying Delilah you little vi—” His voice cuts off and with an oof he hits the floor. For a long moment Christine can only stare at him, barely able to process that he had been chasing her, and now he is lying on the floor.

“Dammit.” His voice is soft, incongruous with how it had been a moment before, and he curses again, a string of curses, several of them highly unrepeatable and absolutely not suitable for female company.

Christine purses her lips and kneels down beside him. This is not at all how she imagined things might go, though how exactly she _did_ imagine things would go she is not certain. She had considered whipping his mask off and kissing him so that perhaps the shock of the kiss would alleviate the anger of her removing the mask, and she could study his face properly while he was trying to piece himself together. But she is not in the habit of kissing men, certainly _not_ unexpectedly and certainly not ones who have spent a considerable amount of time deceiving her into believing them _angels_ , so of course she scrapped that before she ever curled her fingers around the edge of the mask, and decided that she would simply see how things went.

Still. In her wildest dreams this is _not_ how she imagined things could go. Her captor tripping over himself as he chases her, and still lying there cursing steadily to himself.

“Would you like some help?” Her voice is calm, shockingly calm compared to the anxiety twisting in her gut. Imagine if he starts chasing her again after she helps him up? What a mess it could all turn into!

The simple question cuts off his tirade, and he mutters, “Please,” still not removing the hand covering the previously-masked half of his face.

She sighs, and resists the urge to roll her eyes as she rolls him over, and takes his free hand and pulls him into a sitting position.

“I would really prefer if you did not wear the mask.” The statement is plain, and he stares at her from his uncovered eye.

“The mask will protect you from the sight of this mangled mess.”

 _Mangled mess._ Well it is highly descriptive but not quite what she would say.

“Let me be the judge of that, please,” and she wraps her hand around his wrist and pulls it away. His face is indeed a mess, all red and raw and inflamed, and is that _bone_? How is he not riddled with infections? “Actually, I’ve seen worse.”

In spite of the whole ridiculous situation, he scoffs. “How could you have seen worse?”

“I assure you, Monsieur, I saw plenty of half-decomposed and partially eaten carcasses in the Swedish forests. And your face, thankfully, does not smell, so yes, I have certainly seen worse.”

He gapes at her, and she smiles, and pats him gently on the back of the hand. “Please do leave the mask off. I would like the chance to get used to your face.”


	9. Awake My Soul

She was only gone for two days. Sorelli's wedding necessitated it, otherwise she would never have left. But of course Erik would not attend, being nervous about being in public with so many people. So Christine took the burden upon herself – though she is terribly fond of Sorelli, and so it was not a burden but she did not like leaving Erik behind in order that she might attend – and told Mohammed to keep an eye on her husband, and keep him occupied.

She arrives home exhausted, as one well might expect, and deposits her bags inside the door. The thought of a nice hot bath, soothing her exhausted muscles (it is a long time since she has danced like that, after all), is almost more than she can bear. It will take a little time to prepare, of course, but that matters little, not when she can soak herself afterwards.

Such comforting thoughts are swiftly driven from her mind when she sees the state of the parlour.

The furniture is upended, some of it broken, black candles smashed and several of the hangings slashed. She dreads to see what the rest of the house looks like, but such fears of destruction are driven out with the gripping, icy terror of _Erik_.

Where is he? Is he all right? What happened?

Surely no mob attacked, not down here. How could they ever find it?

Heart pounding, skin crawling uncomfortably, she searches under all of the furniture and does not find him. Beads of cold sweat prickle her forehead, and she swallows, running into Erik's study.

The destruction here tears her heart. His drawings, compositions, lie in shreds of confetti on the floor, a knife thrust into the top of his desk, handle glinting menacingly. But there is no Erik, and she whirls around, tears burning her eyes, and runs into their bedroom.

The linens are thrown off their bed, wardrobe open and drawers rifled through, clothes strewn across the floor. But there is no Erik, and it is all she can do to restrain a sob. Where _is_ he? Surely he has to be here somewhere.

The bathroom. Maybe…Maybe he is in there.

The bath. His admirable knives. No. _No-_

A cold hand wraps tight her throat, and she can't breathe, but she has to know, has to _see._

In a numb stupor, she swallows hard, combs her hand through her hair, and walks in.

And she finds him, but not as she expected. Frankly, she is not certain what she expected. Perhaps he would be sprawled in the bathtub, with his admirable knives, or maybe he would be simply washing his wounds after whatever battle has taken place here, peacefully unaware of her arrival.

But it is neither of those things, and the peacefulness of the scene she encounters catches her heart and she cannot be angry, or upset.

Erik is asleep, his clothes in disarray, and head lying pillowed in Mohammed Khan's lap. Mohammed hears the clack of her heels on the marble floor, and cracks open one jade eye, bringing his finger to his lips. She slips off her shoes and softly pads over to them, kneeling on the floor beside Erik and laying her hand gently on his forehead. His eyelids flicker slightly, but other than that he does not stir.

"What happened?" she murmurs, an unsteadying wave of relief washing over her when she sees that he does not appear to have any wounds.

"He took a little laudanum to help him sleep after our chess game yesterday," Nadir says softly, "and I went home. When I came back I found everywhere like this, and he was hiding in here with his head in his hands. It took me a little while, but I managed to get it out of him that he woke up and panicked that you were never coming back. He is dreadfully sorry for the mess, by the way. That much he was _very_ specific on." Christine’s heart twists painfully at his words, and she presses a soft kiss to Erik's cheek.

"You did your best, Mohammed. It could have been much worse."

Mohammed makes a noncommittal noise, and she looks up to see him looking at her with a silent plea in his eyes. "Please," he says, "promise me you will not go away like that again. I am not certain that he can survive it, and I _know_ I cannot.”


	10. Explanations

Little Erik is fond of company. This Manon has learned in the short months that she has known him. He is fond of company, and being near someone once he has come to trust that person (and she flatters herself that he trusts her), though he is less fond of that person attempting to make conversation with him, unless he wants to. Which is how they have found themselves ensconced in Box Five while the rest of the Opéra House sleeps, her working on her needlepoint and he reading a novel that he pilfered from one of the other ballet girls. ("I'll leave it back, Manon, I promise," he pouted. "Just let me read it first.") They have two lamps for light, and all is peaceful, with Manon's thoughts lingering more on the lovely Anton Giry than on her needlepoint.

That is, all is peaceful until Erik declares, "Manon, I have a question." So startling is his clear voice in the silence that she stabs herself with her needle, sending all imaginings of Anton's thighs from her mind. A bead of blood swells on her finger, and she hastily puts it into her mouth, sucking it to ease the stinging. The blood is coppery a moment, and when it clears she takes her finger out, wrapping it in the fold of her dress, the pinprick still smarting.

"Well, what is it, Erik? I'll do my best to answer." She is not quite certain that she will be able to answer him. In his time here he has questioned all sorts of things from the weight of the chandelier to why the conductor still permits that "inferior viola player" to remain part of the orchestra.

"I was exploring yesterday, Manon, behind the flies, and I heard someone squealing and giggling so I looked out and I saw Naeva and she was under Montel on the floor and he was kissing her neck and I couldn't see his hand but I think it might have been inside her bodice and her skirts were up and…and what were they  _doing_ , Manon? It did  _not_  look very comfortable, and Naeva's hands were up his shirt and Montel gave this funny little wiggle that looked like it hurt Naeva. He wasn't trying to hurt her was he?"

If Erik had, at this point, looked up from his book he would have seen Manon blushing so furiously that even the tips of her ears were burning. She swallows hard, and silently but soundly curses both Naeva and Montel for not being more discreet. At least she and Anton…

No. She must not let herself think of Anton now. Erik is curious enough as it is and she cannot delay answering because then he might look up and see her blushing and why did he have to  _see that_ to begin with? Why did he have to wonder? Why could he not have learned about these things off the travelling fair? He can hardly be more than twelve even though he does not know his age himself. How can she explain something like that to him?

"Well, Erik," she says, and her voice is hoarse which causes his brow to wrinkle – what she can see of it with the mask – though he does not look up. Swallowing, she tries again. "Well, Erik, you see, sometimes when two people love each other very much they—I mean that is—well I—Montel and Naeva were playing a game. He was not trying to hurt her, they were cuddling and playing that's all. Nothing else at all." She tries to look unconcerned, and unwraps her pricked finger from her dress. The bleeding has stopped thankfully, and she sneaks a look at Erik, but it doesn't look as if he's heard a word she's said, so absorbed is he in his book.

Damn him. Flustering her like that and then not even listening.

Several weeks pass, and Manon thinks Erik has forgotten all about that late night conversation in Box Five. They are reclining on the edge of the lake, and he is expounding on his plans to build a place to live on the other shore. Never mind that he is only twelve and can hardly build himself a home, but it would not do to laugh at the boy, not when he looks so serious, and it does no harm to let him dream.

At least, it does no harm to let him muse aloud on his construction plans while she reads until he suddenly breaks his flow of speaking to say, "I saw you playing with Anton Giry last night in the far corridor on the third floor. Why was he playing with your breasts? It was a cold night and you were shivering."

And Manon, her burning-red face hidden behind her book, thinks it would be terribly easy to throw that boy into the lake and be done with him.


	11. Reflections

It might not be so bad if it were opium. Even as he thinks it, Nadir knows he’s fooling himself. After all this time it would be terrible if it were opium. But opium, at least, is the devil he knows. Opium he is familiar with, however good or bad that familiarity is.

But _morphine._

Morphine makes the veins on Erik’s arm pop out more than they used to, and as Nadir runs his fingers over them his stomach churns. No one’s arm should look like that, pitted and bruised. And Erik curses when he can’t find a vein, and goes to his other arm, goes to his legs and his body is a littered map of needle tracks and bruises.

He squints as he injects into the tiny veins between his toes.

What will happen when all of his veins are collapsed? When he can’t find any to ease that needle into, jaw clenched and biting his lip? Will he just die? Or will he find another way to take his drug?

It might be kinder if he died before that day ever comes. And Nadir hates the thought, he _hates_ it, but it never goes away, always lingers in the back of his mind and especially when Erik is sleeping peacefully beside him, his lips barely parted and breaths soft, one bruised, aching arm wrapped around Nadir’s waist. It would be nice, to be able to sleep too, to not have to _think_ , but he can’t sleep because if he sleeps he might wake to find Erik cold and still beside him, and he can’t let that happen while he sleeps, he _can’t_.

(Two days after Erik sent the girl and her lover away, Nadir arrived down here and found him, stretched on his black couch and barely breathing with the hypodermic and its case on the floor beside him. And Nadir forgot every ounce of squeamishness, every ounce of fear and distaste, and pulled Erik into his arms and propped him up and prayed that he would _keep breathing_ , _just keep breathing_. And when Erik’s breaths stuttered, and stopped, Nadir pulled his shirt open, and rubbed his knuckles up and down his chest until he gasped another breath and started breathing again. _I love you_ , Nadir whispered, the relief weakening him so that he could keep the words in no longer, knowing that they were true and always had been true, _I love you I love you I love you_ each time punctuating the phrase with a kiss pressed to Erik’s forehead. Hours later, when at last Erik woke, it was with a confused face and _Was I dreaming?_ tears shining in his eyes.)

The opium, so long ago, let Erik sleep peacefully without any nightmares and Nadir would be lying if he did not confess to occasionally smoking it to. But the morphine, the morphine is destroying him from the inside out, and Nadir is helpless to do anything except hold him, and watch.


	12. Dawn Reflections

Sometimes it seems so hard to remember that there was ever a time before this, before _her._ It is not that they’ve been together very long (two years, officially) but there’s just been so much of it. So many sweet nights with their bodies pressed together, so many early mornings of blinking her eyes open to that soft, sleeping face. Candlelit dinners, and parlour-dancing, and illicit, secret interludes in the wings, on the roof.

Christine sighs, and brushes a curl of hair from Corinne’s forehead. Her lover snuffles, and nuzzles into her pillow, and Christine can’t keep away the smile that curls her lips. Tonight, there is the opening of a new production, the first time _Faust_ has been performed since—Since, and though she knows she should be nervous, should be terrified of any number of things happening, she knows, too, that there is nothing that can touch her on that stage, not with Corinne watching over her.

And there is no one left, now, to hurt her.

Sadness flickers in Christine’s heart, but there are no tears left to cry, and there have not been in so very long. She has buried all of her ghosts, and they cannot reach her here.

Corinne’s fingers tighten around Christine’s hip, as if she knows the terrible thoughts in her mind, and it is enough to draw her back, away from those dark nights to here, to the misty light filtering in through the blinds. It is if it happened to somebody else, all of that, her whole past, as if she only truly came to life the night Corinne leaned in and kissed her hesitantly on the lips. And on a morning like this— on a morning like this Christine would not have it any other way.


	13. Alone in the Darkness

She will come, though. She will. She must! If there is one thing that Christine is (and she is many things, many wonderful things) it is reliable, and honest. Likely she got delayed with the performance. She will have been so wonderful that the audience surely swarmed her afterwards, singing her praises and bringing her flowers. And Christine is such a polite girl, she is, that she will not leave without seeing everyone, thanking everyone, and shaking their hands.

Christine is such a good girl.

But she is late. And Christine is never late. Not to rehearsals, not to lessons, not to performances. Not to him. Not when she has said she will come.

Besides, she is only half an hour late. It must be a delay.

He did not attend tonight’s performance. He would have, but he thought it best not to, to finish putting all of the preparations in place. So many things to be set up, and he was finished just before she was due to arrive. Was due. Still not here, and now she is forty-five minutes late.

He can feel the restlessness in his fingers. They tap his knee in spite of himself, a staccato rhythm like nothing he would ever write and still they insist on it. Tap. Tap tap tap. Tap tap. Tap. Tap tap tap tap tap tap. Tap. He flexes his fingers, balls them into a fist as if that can stop them, as if that can keep them under control. And while it stills his fingers it makes his gut twist, his heart flutter. Fifty minutes. The room is silent but for this breathing, and the ticking of the clock.

He takes his watch out, flicks it open, and it shows the same time as the clock. Fifty-one minutes now. He snaps it closed, twines the chain between his fingers and tightens so that the links feel as if they are embedded in his flesh, as if they will always be there, pressed deep, reminding himself of this. Of this sitting here and waiting. Endless waiting. Tick tock tick tock tick. Tock. Tap tap tap. His fingers start again, and he groans, too little air in the room and his chest type.

No sign of her. Why is there still no sign of her? There should be. Something must have happened. Something terrible. Something awful. Perhaps there was a shooting in the theatre and he was so tied up with his thoughts he missed it. He left the chamber disarmed, so she cannot have fallen in. Perhaps that damned, meddling Daroga got to her and put her off! Filled her with the worst tales from Mazandaran so she would not come this way!

Perhaps it was the boy. That perfect, blond, aristocratic, flawless Chagny boy. It must be. He must have gotten to her.

Dammit but Erik should have finished that boy last night! He would have been right to! And if he had Christine would be here now and there would be none of this waiting!

The thought carries him to his feet, and out the door. And if he is fast enough, he might be able to catch them. He _must_ catch them.


	14. Plotting

How long has it been? So long he cannot remember, so long his own formidable memory has failed him. (Twenty-five years. Twenty-five years, seven months, and two weeks. He can feel it in his bones.) That face is crinkled now, lined with age, deep creases around the eyes. Of course, that man was always older than him. Must be very nearly sixty now.

Still Erik’s heart falters at the sight of him. He had, after all, assumed the man dead long ago. To suddenly find him alive _now,_ thousands of miles away from where he was last seen and decades older is a bit of a shock, to put it mildly.

It might not be him. Probably it is simply someone who looks startlingly like how he might now.

(It is him. It is. And attempting to deny that is futile.)

Erik takes a stuttering breath and has to sit down. It’s been so long, _so long._

He should meet him. Should, should pay a call on him. That’s what normal people do, is it not? Pay a call on someone they have not seen in decades? Renew old acquaintances? Yes, that is exactly what they do. Even Erik knows that much.

But Erik is _not_ a normal person. And that, that is the problem, is it not? He is not a normal person and he has never been a normal person and he will never be a normal person and so he cannot simply pay a call on the old Daroga and say hello and take tea in the parlour. It is out of the question. Completely and totally out of the question.

Damn it but life was so much more peaceful before he discovered the Daroga in Paris. Now he has to figure out what to do about it, and it really is a headache that he does not need right now.

He should just pretend he does not exist. Pretend he has not seen him, and carry on with life.

No. That is out of the question too. The old booby has already taken up attending the opera, and sooner or later he is bound to hear whispers of the Ghost and start putting things together and he’ll figure out Erik is here and then Erik really _will_ have to do something about it and it will not be something pleasant.

He could arrange to take the same brougham as the man. Say hello and shock him. But the old Daroga might have an apoplectic fit and that would be no good for anyone. The whole idea lacks finesse.

Or, he could break into the old man’s home. He has already tracked him to the Rue de Rivoli, tracked him to his front door, in fact, and spent time examining the layout of the house. He could break in, and sip brandy in the parlour, and be sitting there ready to surprise the Daroga when he returns home from the opera.

But that would almost certainly lead to an apoplectic fit. And the Daroga’s manservant, that insufferable Darius by the look of him, has joined him in Paris, and is a decided complicating factor in any such plan.

Erik _could_ , not saying he would but he _could_ , turn up wounded at the front door. The Daroga has never been able to resist helping someone in trouble, and the same has always gone for Erik and if Erik were wounded all questions could be set aside for a time.

That might just work.

Best that it not be too dangerous of a wound, though. It would not do to bleed to death on the man’s carpet. Just a little one, that looks worse than it is. That would be good.

He has plenty of knives. Draw one across his chest, not too deep so as to avoid any permanent damage, but deep enough that it would bleed profusely. And if he could faint just as the Daroga helps him inside that would be marvellous. A fantastic piece of theatre.

Yes. He rather thinks that is what he will do. An excellent plan!


	15. City Battleground

It is the shooting that brings the nightmares on. Christine knows this, but she is powerless to keep him safe from it. Not that there is shooting every night, but a lot of nights. More and more nights, lately. He wakes in a cold sweat, some part of him still trapped on a trench-riddled battlefield, and she dabs the sweat away, and makes him tea, and holds him as he trembles. She would sing for him, if she thought it might help (if she could find her voice to sing), but no song seems right, no lullaby.

They came here by an indirect route, criss-crossing France and then into England and across to Dublin. Dublin was Raoul’s suggestion, a place he would like to see, that he had often heard of from—from his brother.

His brother that the authorities think he murdered.

Of all the things Erik did, to her and to Raoul and to the Persian, it is the murder of Comte Philippe that she cannot forgive. He killed him, and in doing so condemned Raoul to never be free of his ghost. It is that crime more than any that makes pain twist in her heart. He killed Philippe, and brought those shadows into Raoul’s eyes, and now this is all they have. Just this.

Neither she nor Mamma are fluent in English, though she understands more of it than Mamma does. Raoul has been giving her lessons, in the hope that they might get to fit in more, might become less conspicuous. It is Raoul that tells her the news, Raoul that speaks to the people and reads the newspaper, Raoul who tells her that shooting is nothing to worry about, that it is a few insurgents causing trouble.

Christine knows it is a war. But what for she has no idea. She had thought there was nothing left to war over, now.

It might be nice, if they were out in the country somewhere. She has heard there are cows, and sheep, and vast tracts of unspoiled land like France used to be. It might be nice to take up the life of a country wife. It might be quieter. Surely the gunshots, if there are gunshots, do not echo so out there.

But Raoul says they have a better chance in the city than in the country. Raoul says that if they were in the country someone might mistake them for English spies undercover, her with her halting English and him with his French accent. She thinks it more likely that the soldiers might mistake them for insurgents, the insurgents who do not speak English but Irish.

The soldiers have already ransacked the apartment. They frightened Mamma, and it took Raoul and one of their new neighbours Monsieu— _Mister_ Duffy, to talk them away.

Christine is used to soldiers now, and sometimes when she sees them she sees the same glimpse of smoking battlefields in their eyes that she sometimes sees in Raoul’s, and then she knows, she knows they are living in a war too.


	16. Tears to Roses

They have been together for several months, three if Amir is being precise. (And in this matter he is always precise.) Three marvellous months that have brought him so much joy. They have not done anything more intimate than kissing, largely because neither of them have any particular inclination to, but they do not need to. What they _do_ have is dear enough, to both of them, and at their age the question of stamina is one that they really must consider, after all.

Erik, of course, remains terribly shy of the intimacy that they have. Amir cannot say that he is surprised, or frustrated. The only way to love Erik – if it is indeed love that they have – is to be endlessly gentle, and patient. There has been far too much pain in his life for anyone to be able to love him differently. It is only to be expected, after all.

Tonight, Erik lies peacefully before the fire, his head pillowed in Amir's lap. Darius has already brought them tea, and Erik is peacefully talking himself out. The Opera has deigned to put on a composition of his, unaware that it is by their resident ghost. The young soprano Christine Daaé is making wonderful progress at her singing lessons, and has a budding romance with the Vicomte de Chagny. This pleases Erik no end as he feels he may have had a hand in their running into each other, and Amir is content to see Erik so happy over something that largely affects other people.

It takes some time before Erik gets drowsy, and Amir sits patiently stroking his hair. He will help him to bed before long, but for now it is enough to sit like this.

Well, almost enough.

Erik sighs, his eyes slipping closed, and Amir sees his chance. "May I kiss you?" he asks, softly, and Erik hesitates a moment before his lips twist into a faint smile.

"Yes," he murmurs, and Amir bows his head, bringing their lips together at last.


	17. To Hell with Predictions

Maman tells her that she is fated to be an empress someday, reminds her weekly of that fact. But Meg has no desire to become empress, no desire to become anything other than prima ballerina. She does not wish to marry, to have power, to rule. All she has is here, right here in this theatre.

All she wants is this ballet corps.

All she wants is Jammes.

Jammes smiles at her, as if she can sense her hidden thoughts. They've talked about it, whispered over it in the darkness, the prediction that has been made for her life. But to become empress would be to give up Jammes, and so help her but she will  _not_  give up Jammes. She might not know much but she does know that.

Jammes kisses her gently on the cheek, a peck out of sight of the others, and Meg cannot help the fluttering in her stomach. She inclines her head, just slightly, just enough, and Jammes' next kiss lands on the corner of her lips. Meg's lips tingle for more, to kiss deeper, to pull her closer, but that will have to wait for now. Just for now.

And if any emperor ever asks her for her hand, Meg will tell him where to shove his proposal.


	18. Failure of Restraint

“You’re out of your damn mind.” There is no question that the words are true. How could Erik be any other way? The man hasn't slept in four days, has paced and composed and drank wine and paced and composed some more. He has not eaten, he has not bathed, and he turns up on Iman’s doorstep tonight looking like he has crawled out of a sewer.

Which he almost has, considering the likely state of his home after all that.

How could he be anything _but_ out of his damn mind?

Erik whirls around, his eyes blazing. “Can't you see, Daroga? I’ve never been more _in_ my damn mind! It’s the only thing I can do.”

Iman very much doubts that, and sighs, throwing down his newspaper to regard his sometime-friend pacing in front of the fireplace. “You could take a strong dose of laudanum and sleep.”

Erik shakes his head, gestures as if to brush off the comment, his lips pursed. “My mind would be too slow.”

“Your mind is arguably too fast now. You’ll frighten the girl if you go to her like this. At least bathe!” _And put on your mask_ , he thinks but restrains himself from saying. Letting something like that slip out would probably only make him worse, and at least if he bathes it might give him time to realise that himself. “Erik—”

But Erik cuts him off, shakes his head more forcefully. “No, Daroga, no. There isn't time for that!” And with those words, he races out of the room, his cloak billowing behind him.

Iman is on his feet in an instant, following right behind but by the time he reaches the door Erik is already gone, disappeared into the darkness of the street. All he can do is sigh, and close the door, knowing that when the girl rejects Erik’s proposal, he’ll wander aimlessly back.


	19. Shopping Trip

Such an abundance of goods in one shop is, frankly, troubling. Though it is not the abundance that is troubling so much as the variety. Having food and pet food in such close proximity is within the bounds of expectation. Both are, after all, consumable and the same goes for alcohol.

But is there really a necessity to have clothing housed alongside the food? Or a collection of books? Or magazines? Or children's toys? Or even, Lord, musical  _instruments_?

(He will grant that they are probably not very good instruments, but it is frankly disconcerting to find them there.)

And that is without mentioning the electronic goods, or the cds and dvds. Or the other things for pets like the toys and the small, seriously unethical, housing systems for small animals.

It crosses his mind that he should just blow up the whole fish aisle because not one thing on it is actually beneficial, but Christine senses his thoughts and gently steers him to look at a guitar.

And then he wants to smash the guitar because it is not a quality instrument at all.

She guides him out, in the end, having deemed the entire venture futile, and he could not agree more.


	20. Dinner Date

What is it about the girl that gives her these tender feelings? Corinne can’t put her finger on it. She is a wonderful singer, true, but it cannot just be that. Being a wonderful singer is surely not enough to make someone else want to kiss you, and when Corinne thinks about it that is at the heart of the matter. She wants to kiss her. She wants to hold her close, and stroke her hair, and press her lips gently to her forehead. She wants to protect her.

She wants very many things and not a one of them truly makes sense. There have been girls before. Several of them, in fact, ballet girls and chorus girls, soft bodies pressed to hers in the night and lips on throats and hands curled around hips. But none of them ever managed to inspire this, this _yearning_ inside of her chest that makes her heart stutter. Not even Philippe quite managed to achieve that, though sometimes she feels an ache for him deep inside.

Besides, it was always Philippe who took her out for dinner, never the other way around. And she certainly did not take any of those other girls out either.

But Christine. Poor Christine, after everything she’s been through! The new opera has gone down a storm and Corinne knows no small part of that is due to the infamy of its lead soprano, if not her talent. But the girl has been fantastic, has surpassed even Corinne’s high expectations, and it seems only right to take her to dinner to celebrate.

Christine declines champagne, for the sake of her voice though one glass would hardly do terrible damage. And after they place their orders, and are waiting for the entrées to arrive, she smiles across the table at Corinne, the first true smile she’s given in so very long, and Corinne’s heart flutters.


	21. Portraiture

It is the nose that presents him with the greatest difficulty. Using a mirror, a mask, and the line drawings of his apparent grandparents, Madeleine and Charles, he is able to deduce the shape of the face, and the eyes. The lips do give him some trouble, but enough questions through the years have given him a good idea of how they must have looked.

But the nose. They all say he had no nose, but how could he just have _no nose?_ How could he just be _born_ with no nose? It makes no sense. It’s—it’s a biological impossibility! Every medical book, every journal, and never once has he found anything like it, not even a _suggestion_ of something like it.

Well, except syphilis. But if it had been syphilis he would not be sitting here trying to draw the man.

So was it just a hole in place of a nose? Or was there skin over the gap?

He should ask. Nadir or Mamma it doesn’t much matter, but he _should_ ask. He should know. It just—He doesn’t feel _right_ asking. It doesn’t feel like something that should be asked.

Konstin sighs and takes his lead back up. Maybe he could just _ignore_ the nose, ignore that whole nose-issue, and finish the rest of his portrait. And then show it to Nadir, or Darius, or Raoul, and ask them how it should be.

He would show it to Mamma, but it might upset Mamma, and she’d be teary telling him how it should be, and he doesn’t want her to be teary, not over Papa. Not anymore.


	22. An Unlikely Love

When he met the dear little lady it was simply a matter of acquaintance. Mademoiselle Daaé is, after all, dear friends with his own master Shahin and so it was simply polite for him to speak to Madame Valerius. He had not expected that the mere formalities of politeness would give rise to a passionate discussion about the weather in Paris, how it is so very different from what she knew in Sweden, and what he knew in Mazandaran.

Persia was never quite so stifling as conditions are here, and though he has been here fourteen years it is still, sometimes, more than he can bear.

By the end of that first meeting he had become Darius, and she was Alix.

Sometimes they meet on the Rue de Rivoli, when Shahin is otherwise distracted dealing with some Erik-related crisis. Darius never thought he would see the day that he would be pleased for Erik to get into some sort of complex tangle of affairs, but that day has come and he could not be more surprised himself at how he relishes in it.

Sometimes they meet in her apartment that she shares with the Mademoiselle (who is soon, herself, to become a Madame if the murmurs he has heard from Shahin are true, and they surely are). And depending on whose residence they are in, sometimes he cooks for her, and sometimes she for him. He never expected that she would take to the dishes of his home country so readily, and he must admit his own delight in the treats she often cooks up for him.

It is a tremendous treat just to see her bustle around the kitchen.

Neither of them could ever claim to be young. Sometimes he feels as if the flight from Persia has aged him immeasurably. And she is, of course, a widow. She rarely speaks of the late Professor, but it is always with deep affection in her voice, and a certain bittersweetness in her eyes.

When, exactly, he starts wishing that affection were for him, he cannot pinpoint. It simply happens that the very thought of seeing Alix causes his heart to flutter in a way it has not since he was a boy.

But he cannot live with the secret bundled deep in his heart. It craves to be let out, craves to become known.

They are both in their cups one evening, not drunk simply a little light-headed under the heady influence of an excellent bottle of red wine. And he smiles at her, at the still-golden strands woven through her silver hair (she took her bonnet off some time ago, and the sight is breathtaking), and the creases around her eyes, and murmurs, his tongue looser than ever it would be if they had been drinking tea instead, “You are very beautiful.”

A flush darkens her cheeks, from the compliment (he hopes) more than the wine, and she smiles a small smile as she whispers, “you are not so terribly hard on the eyes yourself.”

And it is between one heartbeat and the next, the impulse that has thrummed inside of him for weeks now, that he leans in and presses his lips, lightly, to hers.

His heart soars when she kisses him back.


	23. Wartorn

She came here as soon as her shift ended, came right back to his side instead of going to bed. Her fingers ache to trace his cheek, to ghost over the stitched gash that mars his forehead. A piece of shrapnel must have caught him. Or did he cut it when he got tangled in the barbed wire? There are so many such wounds like it, gashes deep in his arms, his legs. The back of his right hand. His left hip.

It is best that he is sleeping. She does not need to tell herself that to know. They’ve given him blood, and morphine, removed the bullet from his right lung and fixed a better drain in place for it, so that it does not collapse and suffocate him.

His lips are still tinged blue.

For as long as he’ll live, he’ll never take a full breath again.

She almost did not recognize him when they brought him in, but there was a flash of—of _something_ in the back of her mind. She has seen so many ash-blond young men that she cannot be certain what it was about him that made her heart lurch the moment she saw him on the stretcher. It must be the cowlick. He used to always brush it out of his eyes when they were small. One practiced fluid motion of his hand, combing it back. How many times did she see him do it? On the beach there at Perros-Guirec? Half the country and a whole lifetime away.

(Nine years. Nine years since they met for the last time. They were only twelve, still full of the dreams of the world, their hearts aching at the parting, and he smiled, and took her hand, and kissed the back of it, ever so gently, like the gentleman he would become. And even now, his are the only lips to have ever graced it.)

Suppose he does not remember her? Suppose those days of their innocence are lost to him? He probably has a sweetheart somewhere. A fiancée, urgently waiting for news. Maybe even a wife, oblivious to what has happened to him. What right does she, Christine, have to sit here beside him? Only the strength of ancient acquaintance.

She cannot pretend that it is a miracle that he has fetched up here, in the very hospital she is working in. It would be better, a thousand times better, if she had not been reminded of his existence at all. Would that she had forgotten about him, and he had not been wounded, than for him to be lying before her now.

Besides, she was certain he would have entered the Navy. He always did love the sea. The trenches are no place for him.

His brother must be worried sick.

They’ll probably give him a desk job, if he lives. Up the line is a death trap for someone with compromised lungs.

If he lives. If.

But he will. He must! She could not abide it if he didn’t and her heart twists, tears prickling her eyes. No, he will live, he has to live. Yes it’s a serious wound but he survived the surgery, and when he survived the surgery then that should mean he will survive, unless he gets an infection, and pneumonia is always a terrible risk and—

—and a strangled whimper dies in her throat when a moan slips from the man in the bed.

She swallows hard and roughly wipes away her tears. He moans again, brow furrowed, and gently she takes his hand, cradles it in hers.

“You’re all right, Ra—Lieutenant De Chagny.” _All right is terribly relevant,_ she thinks even as she says it, and it is a struggle to keep his Christian name from rolling off her tongue, _but he is more all right now here than he was out there._ “You’re all right.”

Another moan, his lips twisting and his eyes flicker open. Those eyes. They were the same blue as the sky at dawn. Are they—have they changed at all? Or are they just the same as they were back then? And her breath catches in her throat as she silently urges them to open.

And they open, they do. And he blinks, groggy, his eyes wandering, roving, until they come to rest on her face.

He swallows, and she sharply inhales, her heart throbbing at the sight of his gaze. How many nights did she dream of him, wonder about him? Theoretical fiancée be damned, but she has every right to be here beside him now, and her heart swells, driving the air from her chest, making it so hard to breathe. His fingers twitch against hers, and she smooths her thumb over the back of his hand.

He blinks, and then, in a voice so faint she leans in closer to hear him, he murmurs, “Little…Lotte?”

Little Lotte. And the pain that blooms in her chest is sharper than any she has known since Papa died. Little Lotte. She has not heard those words in so very long, has tried not to think of them, and fresh tears well in her eyes as she nods, and brings his hand to her lips.

“Hello Raoul.”

He swallows again, and a weak crooked smile spreads across his face. “Where’s your…red scarf?”

Her red scarf, floating on the water. And she couldn’t swim, couldn’t wade in or the water in her dress would pull her down, and before she could call for Papa to help her a blond-haired boy swam over, caught her scarf and held it high in victory before bringing it back to her, smiling brighter than the sun.

“Safe, I should hope,” she whispers, and a weak chuckle comes from his throat as his eyes slip closed.

In a moment he is asleep again, the strain of all he has endured bearing him away. And she kisses his fingers, and lays his hand back down, and sighs.

It will not do anyone any harm, if she sits here just a little longer.


	24. Panic

She was able to cope with the minor roles, able to handle being sent back into the background. But tonight, tonight is the first night she’s been thrust into the lead (thanks to Carlotta developing a throat infection), and she’s not ready, she’s not. How can she go up there and pretend to be all right for them all to see? How can she be expected to sing every song with precision now, after everything?

Corinne knows these are the questions that flashed through Christine’s mind as she read the note that was hand-delivered to their door after breakfast. She could see it in her eyes when she looked up from the slip of paper, the fear that though there is nothing left to happen, something _could_ happen.

(Christine has told her everything, about Raoul, about the mysterious Erik. About what happened to Philippe. And Corinne held her, and they both cried.)

Corinne eased the message from her hand, and took her in her arms, unable to speak with the lump in her own throat. What could she say that would possibly help? How could she ever hope to take some of the pain away?

But that is hours ago, now. Hours in which they’ve drunk tea, and composed themselves, and Corinne held Christine’s hand and promised her that she would be fine. She would stand up there and be brilliant and wow that crowd that still whispers of the scandal, that crowd that has wounded them both. _Besides_ , she said, _stroking her thumb over the smooth skin on the back of Christine’s hand, I will be up there with you the whole time. It will not be like before._

There are many things that Corinne hates Erik for. So many things. But most of all, she hates him for taking away Christine’s confidence, for reducing her to this trembling, insecure wide-eyed wreck who is afraid to take her rightful place on stage. She has worked so hard for this. She has earned it in every way. And so help her, but Corinne will do everything she can to protect that fact.

(And to protect that girl. The kisses they have shared have been hesitant, soft, but there is so much more ahead of them, and she will not let a single thing stand in their way.)

She bows her head, and presses her lips gently to the back of Christine’s hand, which is not trembling the way it was a few hours ago. And she flatters herself that a little colour has returned to the girl’s cheeks.

“You are going to stand up there,” she whispers, throat tight with all the things she wants to say but which it is too soon for, “and be the best, brightest, most beautiful thing that stage has ever seen. Nothing can harm you now. So help me I swear it.”


	25. Comfort in Delusions

He has named him Darius. He is not certain why. He has never known a Darius though he has a dim shadowy memory of once hearing about a king with that name when he was a child. Darius is simply a name that slips easily off his tongue, and it eases the ache in his heart to be able to call him that.

Gently, so as not to hurt him, he smooths his fingers over the soft hair on Darius’ head. He is all that is left to him now. Christine is gone. She has been gone for so very long that sometimes it feels as if she was never truly here at all, as if he never held her, never kissed her, never twined his fingers in the soft curls of her hair. His fingers ache to trace the curve of her cheek, feel the warmth of her skin tingling in their very tips, but however they stretch out, however they reach, they never find her.

(If he closes his eyes, closes his eyes and steadies his breathing and slows his heart, he can feel the faint press of her lips to his. The dimmest press, almost as if he has imagined it and not conjured it from memory.)

Once, so very long ago, he had hoped for a child. Had prayed for one, craved for one, a tiny child to cradle close. But when Christine’s “touch of bronchitis” became unshakable, became shivering in his arms at night even as her skin burned up, became blood-stained handkerchiefs and wide eyes, all such dreams of a child fled. The dreams abandoned him. And then Christine did.

But Darius will never abandon him. Darius will be here, always, to have, and to hold, and to whisper to. He sits on the side of the bed that Christine once occupied, and in the silence of the night, when the heaviness in Raoul’s chest is more than he can bear, all he has to do is swallow, and clap, and Darius will play that soft, slow music that carries him back to Christine, brings her back into his arms again.

And he closes his eyes, and sighs, and twines his fingers with her hair once more.


	26. Masquerade

He has worn many names. Not all of them, in truth, actual names. Trapdoor Lover. Master of Illusions. The Devil’s Right Hand. Angel of Music. More too, besides, though those were some particular favourites. Opera Ghost is only the latest in the long line. Evidently Phantom of the Garnier was too much of a mouthful for some.

But there have been the actual given names too. He does not remember the one he was born to, was baptised to (at least he assumes he was baptised. It would not overly surprise him to discover otherwise). He did not wear it long enough, cast it aside at the first opportunity and besides, it was not as if he was often called by it as things were.

The first name he remembers bestowing upon himself was Jan. He was in Brussels at the time, and later when he crossed into Prussia, Jan became Joachim. Then Joachim hurriedly became Matthias due to a rather dramatic turn of events that he prefers not to remember.

In time, Matthias gave way to Gianluca on the outskirts of Rome, and Gianluca fit him quite comfortably though he rarely had cause to give it to anyone, and he kept it all the way to Russia. Anatoly, he decided, sounded dignified, and so it was Anatoly that he became. It was as the Singing Corpse-slash-Master of Illusions-slash-Anatoly that the dear old Daroga first knew him. Then he was given Trapdoor Lover which subsumed Anatoly and before he knew it he was walking nameless. Or, to put it another way, riding nameless hellbent for leather out of Persia as fast as his mare could carry him.

He never took a Persian name. It would have weighed oddly, and besides, it was not as if he was trying to blend in.

As he rode through the land of the Ottomans he remained nameless, until one chance meeting meant he had to find a name quickly and it was then that Erik popped unbidden into his mind. He has no memory of thinking of it, no memory of ever having been acquainted with an Erik, or of reading of one, or being told of one in stories. Perhaps it is only because of the way it occurred, as if planted in his mind by some sort of magic, that he has been able to stick with it, has been able to wear it for so very long without it becoming worn.

He has considered changing it. Has considered venturing elsewhere. To England, perhaps. Or to America where a man such as him can hide and hide forever without being found. Such a move would necessitate a change to some inconspicuous name. Like John. Or Henry, as the English pronounce it, instead of Henri. Of course, such is the oddity of the English (and he has had cause to observe certain aristocrats attending the opera) that Henry could be a surname as well as a given name, and John Henry would be a tolerable enough title to bear, if a little bland.

But such considerations were all Before. Before he chanced to hear an angel singing, on a mad impulse offered to be her teacher and then one thing led to another, led eventually to a kiss that still gives him palpitations to remember, and now, tonight, looking at Christine absorbed in her knitting by the fireside, he knows deep in his heart that he will never change from Erik. For good or ill this is who he is now. And with Christine at his side, it can only ever be good.


	27. Back Together

It is the flick of a cloak, a precise shade of dark skin, that sends his heart falling. He throws his hand out to steady himself against the wall, careful to not be seen. Is it him? Is it really him? Can such a thing be possible? How can he be here?

It is incomprehensible.

(The last time he saw that face there were soft lips pressed to his cheek urging him to _run_. And he went without a second thought. Though there may have been third and fourth thoughts.)

His legs are weak, feel as if they will buckle if he moves too fast but he is powerless to stop.

(Light fingers brushing the back of his hand, his cheek, the nape of his neck, sending shudders racing through him, his stomach fluttering, the press of those lips tingling beneath his ear.)

It is twenty years, twenty years since he laid eyes on that face.

Have things changed so much?

(And the breathlessness in his lungs, the pounding of his heart, tell him that they haven’t but how will he know? How can he be certain?)

They are out on the street already, his eyes following that shape through the crowd, and he can’t help himself, can’t stop himself, a tugging beneath his navel pulling him on and on and on.

(But if things have changed too much? So much time has passed, a whole lifetime, and his skin has not felt the heat of the sun since, has lived under layers and layers, safe from the gazes of the world. Perhaps those eyes that once looked on him with tenderness will now regard him with hatred, and what then? What could he do? He would die. Just fall straight down and die.)

He is not certain where they are, vaguely knows the street, his thoughts too hazy for recognition, but the figure ahead stops, and jolts him back to the present. There is no crowd, not now, all dissipated, only a handful of stragglers left. And that figure is turning around, that face coming into view, those eyes looking at him, and his heart clenches, clenches so tight his head spins, darkness playing around the edges of his vision.

A smile twitches the corners of the lips.

“Erik.” His name is barely more than a breath, but it thrills through him to hear it again after so very long. And the faint smile broadens into a smirk, into a grin. “You thought I didn’t know you were there?”

“Ka—” He cannot pronounce it, cannot get the blessed name out, tears prickling his eyes, the world swimming, and there are arms wrapping around him, steadying strong arms as he goes weak, a head buried in his chest and he gasps, gasps as he sways, buries his face in an astrakhan cap, helpless to stop the shaking of his body.

“You’re all right now, Erik.” The voice is muffled against his clothes, thick with tears, and he’s waited so long to hear that voice, has hung on it in his dreams, but he’s here now, he’s _here_ , and it’s too much, it’s not enough. “You’re safe now. I’m here. I promise. You’re safe.”

And beneath those words there is so much more, so many promises, so many whispers, and Erik sinks bonelessly into his arms, and lets every one of those unspoken words wrap around his heart.


	28. Alcohol & Heartbeats

He has been drinking red wine, and it always leaves him a little more _affectionate_ than usual. (He is often affectionate, surprisingly so, in fact, and while whiskey leaves him morose and cognac leaves him tired and his heartbeat slower in her ears, the wine leaves him aching for contact). She tightens her arms around him, holds him a little closer. If it is contact he wants, then it is contact that he will have.

The curve of his lips as he smiles into her breast tickles, and she cannot help but smile back though he cannot see her, her fingers lightly stroking the shell of his ear.

To think that this is the man she was once so hesitant about touching. And she could hardly credit even the _possibility_ that it might be him, that he might be her soulmate, might be the owner of the heartbeat in her ears, until she could hear her own heartbeat in the melody of his music. But it is him, it is. And after that first night she has never had an ounce of doubt over it, never an ounce of doubt that they are suited for each other.

He is half of her, and she is half of him. And they missed each other their whole lives until that night when she stopped him playing his violin so she could feel his wrist.

He shifts against her, his long body tucked up as small as he can make it so that he can touch as much of her as possible, and nuzzles into her breast, murmurs something unintelligible. Words of love, most likely. His affection when he has been drinking is not merely physical.

“What did you say, darling?” she asks, voice low in the muffled light of their room, and he sighs, raises his head just slightly and presses a kiss over her heart that makes her shiver.

“You’re my favourite song.” The words are soft, blurred with wine, with tiredness, but they catch her heart, make it skip, and he obviously hears it because he chuckles and kisses her again. “Absolute favourite. Above _all_ others.”

Her hand slips, down to his throat, fingers pressed to his throat so she can feel his pulse, feel the thrill as it aligns with the echo of his heart, and she smiles. “And you are mine.”


	29. Late Arrival Anxiety

Where is he? He should have been back by now. Should have been back hours ago! Normally he returns from his rounds only a little after she returns from rehearsals (forty-three minutes, to be precise, and, considering the fact that she spends that time changing into something more comfortable, bringing the fire back to life, and brushing out her hair, it flies right by.)

What could possibly be taking him so long? He has a strict routine he follows. He insists that he does because she asked him about it once. A strict routine, so he always knows how long it takes, give or take a few minutes for additional spying and/or cursing. But this is more than a couple of minutes. It is a couple of hours! A couple of hours late and it is already coming up on three hours since she got back down here.

And despite all of her best efforts, Christine feels panic beginning to creep in.

Suppose something has gone wrong? Suppose something has happened to him? He could have been caught! Could have been arrested and hauled off and how would he ever survive if he was imprisoned? The very thought of it once left his eyes wild. He could have been shot. Even now he could be lying dead or gravely wounded and she would not know and just because she did not hear any shots does not mean it did not happen. All sound is muffled down here. Unless it happened in one of the lower cellars she would never know.

Suppose he tripped and banged his head and is wandering dazed or slumped unconscious somewhere? Suppose he is caught in one of his own traps. Suppose he came a different way and slipped on wet stone at the edge of the lake and she simply did not hear him crying out? He is a strong swimmer but if he was already injured, or tired, and he has not been sleeping well lately anyway—

Nausea coils tight in her stomach and she almost vomits. What could she do about any of them? Any of the multitudinous possibilities? She could search his traps but she does not even know where they all are, and there are so many places for him to get lost, especially if he’d hit his head. How could she ever find him?

And just as tears prickle her eyes, she hears footsteps over the pounding of her heart. Arms encircle her, pull her tight, and she smells the damp of the tight corridors, and the heady scent of his cologne, and relief washes over her, weakening relief that makes her sink into those arms.

“Christine, Christine, my dear, what’s wrong? What happened? Did someone say something to you? Was it that Carlotta again? Christine?” His voice is rough and worried in her ear, and the words catch in her throat.

“You—you—you took so long. Too long! And I thought something had happened and—and I was going to go and look for you—”

“Sshh, my darling. I’m here. Your Erik is here. All will be well now, I promise.” And his hand is gentle rubbing circles into her back, his lips light pressing kisses to her forehead, and the tears come now at last, rolling down her cheeks and soaking into his shirt, and she feels his fingers, his long fingers, twined in the braids of her hair, gently stroking. “Christine, oh my dear, oh my poor darling…” And for a long time, his voice soft in her ear, they stay there like that, just holding each other, holding on, safe and together.


	30. Lessons from the Opera

She had never thought that such a thing could happen, that such a thing were possible. It was so far from her mind, so far from the world she knew, or thought she knew. But she has learned so much ever since she took up performing at the Garnier.

She has learned how to sing, to truly sing, with heart and soul and feeling, thanks to Erik.

She has learned how to carry herself, how to raise her eyes slowly, shyly, to unsteady a man, thanks to Sorelli.

She has learned more about the sea than she ever cared before to know, thanks to Raoul.

She has learned (some) of the mysteries of the heart, of the feelings of one man for another, thanks to Karim.

(And Erik almost always insists on calling him the Daroga, though once or twice he has slipped and called him Karim, with that shy lopsided smile, and a faint flush colouring his cheeks though Karim has told her it has been seven years now since they first—first realised the feelings are mutual.)

She has learned about bearing and rhythm, about feeling the music in every fibre of her body, letting it carry her along, thanks to the ballet girls. And Erik, too, but mostly the ballet girls.

But the important lesson, the one that surprised her the most, the one she cradles the closest, is that the mysteries of a woman’s heart may be the same as a man’s. The feelings of woman for woman, so delicate, so tender.

So unexpected.

So right.

And this most important lesson is the one Christine has learned from Carlotta.

Carlotta, who smiles at her now, lying beside her. Who takes her hand and twines their fingers and murmurs something soft in Italian, the vowels sweetly blurred. And Christine leans closer to her, until their lips brush, and knows that there is no greater gift in her world than this.


	31. To Kiss

"I want to kiss you." His voice is soft, the words lightly blurred, and her heart catches in her throat.

That he still feels the need to ask for permission, even after all of this time.

It is not that he always does. Sometimes their kisses are spontaneous. Sometimes she catches that slight convulsive swallow of his in time, and leans in, invites him without words. Sometimes he catches her hand and raises it to his lips, and after kissing her knuckles he kisses her cheek. But sometimes, times like this, when the nightmares are worse, when something has slipped inside of him, when he is feeling a little more delicate, his edges sharper, he asks, and his voice is always the same. Soft, and faintly hesitant, and she always aches for him. For the terrible things that happened to him, that leave him still so uncertain of himself. For the terrible things that they did to each other.

But those days are behind them, long behind them. There is only this, now, only them. Together and as whole as they can be.

She would have to be some sort of a monster to refuse him, to crush his hopes so cruelly.

And there is always something so very tender about his kisses after he asks. As if he is afraid that he could hurt her, could ask too much of her.

(Never, now. Never.)

So she smiles, and twines her fingers gently with his own. “Of course you may, my husband.”

His lips meet hers, and they are softer even than his words.

* * *

 

There are days when he still forgets, and slips on the mask, even though he is not planning on leaving the house, even when there is only her to see him. (Or dear old Mohammed, if he stops by, but he, too, is long-accustomed to Erik’s face.) She tries not to let herself feel shut out by it, tries to keep the gnawing feelings at bay that he might be hiding something from her and reason that it is merely because it is a reflex ingrained in him from his earliest childhood, maintained over five decades (at least, as far as they know).

It is natural that he is sometimes bound to forget.

(If she could take all of his masks and burn them, she would in a heartbeat. But it would upset him and besides, how could he ever go out without it? He would never be able to bring himself to, and though she hates that it is a fact of their life, it is one which she simply must accept.)

Still. There is one failsafe way of ensuring that he removes the mask in the privacy of their own home.

He is sitting across from her, reading the newspaper, and she clears her throat lightly, just enough to get his attention. He sets the newspaper down, ready to admonish her for risking damage to her voice, and her words are soft as she gestures to her face so that he gets the idea. “Would you…” And then a smile, because he is helpless when she smiles. “I want to kiss you.”

She stands, and he removes the mask before she settles herself in his lap, leaning her body into his (he is so warm, so safe), and her fingers brush his cheek, she presses her lips, ever so gently, to his.


	32. Hope

He finds Erik slumped in his armchair, staring silently down at the floor. Every line of him radiates weariness, emptiness, apathy. (Heartbreak.) The girl is gone, sent aboveground, sent off with her betrothed. But the relief that lingers in Ahmed’s heart for their happiness, for their safety, is drowned by this sight before him.

He has never seen Erik looking so hollow before.

His heart twists, and he swallows down the ball of tears that gather in his throat. What he would not give to grant Erik some peace now, some comfort. There is any variety of things he could do, any variety of tiny gestures – a cup of tea, a blanket, reviving the fire – but they are all designed to ensure _physical_ comfort. And what Erik is suffering now (what _he_ has endured, silently, stoically, for so many years) is so far beyond physical.

Slowly, as if under a power higher than his own, he sinks to his knees before him, before this man who has done so much, committed so much. Erik’s hands are cold between his, his fingers limp, but soft, and Ahmed whimpers with the bolt of pain that lances through his chest. (How long has he longed to do this? How many nights has he dreamt of it? How many days has he come so close, so very close, only to restrain himself in the name of propriety? In the name of their long-standing friendship which at once has been the best and the worst thing to happen in his whole long life?)

“Erik.” The name is hoarse, broken on his tongue, and Erik’s lips twist. “Erik,” and his voice is stronger now and so help him it might be wrong, so help him it might be frowned upon, but if there is even the slightest chance that this could bring Erik some sort of comfort, then he is honour-bound to do it. “Love is not over,” he whispers as he twines his fingers with Erik’s own. “Love need not be over.”

It is now, only now, that Erik raises his eyes from the floor, and as the hazel-gold meets his, Ahmed’s breath catches in his throat. Those eyes have never looked so shattered before, and in spite of everything he’s done, every fibre of Ahmed cries out that this wrong, that this is not how it ought to be. Erik should not have to suffer, should not have to bear this, and as a single tear trickles from one of those hazel-gold eyes, Ahmed squeezes his fingers and leans forehead.

His lips are light when they brush Erik’s, but Erik whimpers.

“Ahmed,” he breathes, fingers squeezing back. “Ahmed.” And in that name is benediction, and welcome.


	33. Refusal

He tripped. That was the explanation for the fresh limp, for the graze on his forehead. He was mentally running through Beethoven’s Concerto no.5, forgot about the crag in the ground, and found himself flat on his face.

(And quite literally flat, too, considering his lack of a nose, but Christine chooses to keep that remark to herself.)

“Just let me look at it, Erik,” she asks, again, as he wipes another trail of blood from his eye. His skin is so delicate that even a graze is enough to make him bleed. And she would almost feel sympathetic towards him, if he had not brought this on himself.

Serves him right for being distracted and getting delayed.

She told him to be down here in time for dinner. And what did he do? Wandered off to the roof to check “a matter I have been working on.” And by the time he had picked himself up and returned, the dinner was cold and she was waiting by the fire, lips pursed, pretending to be knitting.

Well, she did soften a little when he hobbled in disheveled, but _still_. He had _promised her._

“No. No no no. If I let you look at it you’ll go prodding and poking and it will _hurt_ , Christine. I can take care of myself just fine. I’ve been doing it since long before you were born.”

She huffs, and mutters, “Don’t remind me,” to herself more than anything, but then she smiles and raises her voice to be sure he can hear her, and says, “if you let me look at it, there’ll be a kiss in it for you.”

He stops, and stares at her, another droplet of blood rolling down towards his eye. “A kiss?”

“Yes.”

He sits and holds his head straight, face stoic. “Have at it.”


	34. Beauty

He has often thought it, often ached to speak the words, but Hamid knows that to speak such a thing would lead to Erik’s scorn.

“Beautiful? This face? I know you are biased in the name of love, Daroga, but please. Surely your sight is not failing you yet.”

No. He could speak it, but speaking it would not have the desired effect, not if he did it at any time. He has known for so very long that if he is ever to say something – and in its own way, it is tantamount to a declaration of love though he often declares his love anyway and in any variety of words – then he has to time it just. so. so that Erik will not attempt to ridicule the notion.

However true the notion is.

But tonight the time has come. He has no doubt of that fact. It was inevitable that he would be handed an occasion on which he could say it, and now that the time is here he is ready.

Or at least, as ready as he ever will be. He has underestimated how dashing the new dove-grey suit makes Erik. And with the champagne waistcoat that draws out his eyes, it is all Hamid can do to keep his mouth from drying.

(He has imagined that he will speak it with a certain amount of ceremony. They will have watched Christine take her final bows on the Garnier stage, somewhere out there Raoul will be weeping looking at his bride-to-be, the crowd will be half-caught between awe and celebration of her, and he will turn to Erik – who will have tears in his eyes, naturally – and take his hand and raise it gently to his lips. One soft kiss on the knuckles in the privacy of Box Five, as silence descends on the crowd again, and he will breathe, with all of the feeling, all of the love, that he has stored up within him for three long years, “you look beautiful tonight, my love.”)

But in the event, that is not how it is meant to be. Erik catches sight of him, struggling to maintain his composure, and frowns. “What is it, Hamid? Is it the suit? Oh, I knew that tailor could not be trusted. I swear I will have his hide!”

It is on the tip of his tongue to assure Erik that the suit is perfect (too perfect) and he need not skin the tailor, but the moment he opens his mouth to speak, he blurts, “you look beautiful.”

The world hangs suspended in that single enchanted moment, and a flush colours Erik’s cheeks, a smile spreading slowly across his face. “Thank you, my love.”

Hamid’s heart throbs as he smiles back, and the moment is perfect.


	35. Pretense

If they knew they would throw her out. Would laugh at her and say terrible things and suggest that she is some sort of a loose woman. But that is the very reason that they do not know, the very reason that she is so very careful in everything she does.

They are always impressed that she is so skilled at playing girls, marvel at the artist that Little Christopher is. But if there is one thing that _Little Christopher_ knows by now it is how to lay low.

Her father always lamented that for all of her skill she could never actually take to the stage. But Christine learned to bind her breasts, never lets her hair grow past her shoulders, has a talent for making it look as if she has stubble, deepens her voice. And she fits right in.

She is not the only one. If they really knew how many women were secretly in the company they would be horrified, but she and Martin (Meg) and Samuel (Sorelli) are too careful to ever let them know.

But there is someone who knows. Someone not in the company, but outside. She does not know his name, knows only that his voice is soft, and rich, and he wears a mask (she thinks it is to prevent plague, but she cannot be certain) and his eyes are piercing gold like a hawk’s. He meets her, sometimes, after performances, and congratulates her, and she knows he knows but he has never said anything about it.

Perhaps he will commission them. Her and Meg and Samuel and the others, but he has not, not yet. It would be good to have a patron. Good to be able to rely on the tastes of only one person to survive, and not the ever-shifting sensibilities of the public. But if he intends to he has not said a word. And she waits, and smiles for him, and does her best to hide what she is. And at night she goes home with Meg and Samuel, and it is only then that the three of them, all three together, are free to take off the façade and live, for a little while, as they are.


	36. Composure

He is so still, now. So silent. He has often been silent, keeping his own counsel, but she never expected – never once anticipated – that she would see him so still.

It is so very wrong to see him like this.

Her eyes trace his pale face. He has been pale for as long as she has known him. It is to be expected, really. Living underground, wearing a mask. How can he be anything but pale?

But now. Now the paleness is icy. Now it cuts her to her core to see, but she cannot take her eyes away from him. To take her eyes away would lose him, and she cannot lose him. She needs to remember him, always, needs to imprint him deep in her memory. It is the only way she can keep him within her grasp, the only way she can still have him.

(But he’s gone, he’s gone and left her and she cannot follow and her heart lurches but she swallows hard to keep the twisting pain inside. She has already struggled so hard to compose herself, and so help her but she will not be undignified before him now.)

His fingers are so cold against her lips. She presses a kiss to them, as gently as she can, but there is nothing she can do that would hurt him now. He has gone beyond anywhere that could bring him pain, gone beyond all suffering, and she will not believe that he has gone to the fire. She will not let herself believe that.

How could he go to the fire? When he is the one who saved her? He gave her her life back, gave her her music back, and she has not had music, not truly, not since Papa died. It is only thanks to him that she has any hope of a future.

(Though the thought of a future without him in it is almost enough to make her stomach heave. She fights down the bile that burns her throat, and kisses his fingers again.)

Even with what happened, with Raoul, with the Persian, that whole terrible nightmare of an ordeal, even with that his presence in her life has been a gift.

“God gave me you and took you back,” she whispers, “and I know you didn’t believe in him. I know you didn’t believe you were worthy of anything, but you were worthy of so much, Erik, so, so much, and I hope you have peace now.” Her voice cracks, and she swallows to try to steady it. “I know you have peace now.” And she kisses his fingers again, another kiss, and sighs. “He cannot punish you when he made you this way. I do not believe he will. But I will pray for you, every day of my life.”

And caught in her throat are the words she cannot speak, that she has never spoken to him and now never will. The three precious words that she has cradled close. Let them live within her heart, her own hidden secret. No one can ever take them away from her now.


	37. Impulse

 “Just let me do something thoughtless for once.” Karim’s voice is soft as he leans in, and Erik gasps a breath, his heart stuttering as those lips press themselves so softly to his. The sensation is so strange, so foreign, that all he can do is pull back and stare, Karim’s ears blushing pink.

Kissed him. Karim kissed him. _Karim_ —His breath catches in his throat, heart lurching at the thought. Karim kissed him. Karim kissed him. Karim kissed—

“I’m sorry, Erik, I shouldn’t—” Karim’s eyes – _Karim_ who kissed him – Karim’s eyes shine with tears, one trickling over the rim of his eyelid to roll in a droplet down his cheek and with trembling fingers Erik reaches out, and brushes it softly away, shushing him.

“Karim.” The name feels foreign on his tongue, unwieldy as if he has never spoken it though of course he has, and he draws a halting breath, lets his fingers fall to trace those lips that were a moment ago pressed to his own. Karim kissed him which means Karim _wanted_ to kiss him, but he, Erik, he pulled away. He pulled away and ruined it and his heart falters but he wants it too, has wanted it— _needed_ it for so long and Karim will think now that he doesn’t want to kiss him, that he pulled away because he didn’t like it but they didn’t try it really, not properly, and Erik swallows the breath in his throat, and nods, and leans in.

And this time when their lips brush, this time no one pulls away.


	38. Longing

In the stillness of the night there is only their breathing soft in the darkness. Corinne’s eyes droop with tiredness, but she fights the urge to close them. There is nothing to see, not now, but if she closes her eyes she will sleep, and she does not want to sleep, not yet. If she sleeps there are…are so many things which might flicker before her, the real and half-imagined, that which she has learned second-hand about what happened that night and if she lets herself dream it it will spoil this, this peace. So much has been spoiled already.

She sighs, and Christine nuzzles closer into her throat, sleeping easily. She fights the nightmares too, sometimes. Finds herself pulled back there and it was after one of those nightmares that the whole story came spilling out, about the scorpion and the grasshopper and, and _him._

Him. Corinne has never had it in her to hate. To be frightened, to be worried, both of those, true. But to _hate_. And even…even after what he did, she cannot hate him, not truly.

She tried. She stood in the back of a church at a funeral where they glanced at her from the sides of their eyes, and through the aching pain she tried to find it within her to hate him, but she couldn’t. And after Christine came to her, on a soaking wet night with her clothes muddied and torn and hair disarrayed and confessed that she’d just buried the man who had done it, she could not hate him then either.

There is only sadness, a yawning, aching sadness that sometimes feels like it will consume her. But there is not hate, and sometimes, sometimes when Christine catches her eye, and smiles, there is even happiness.

They are marked by that night, bound by it and _him_ , but what they are she cannot tell. Not-friends and not-quite-lovers. But something. Something.

And deep down, deep down through it all, Corinne wishes they could be more.


	39. Fall

He tripped and fell. That was how it happened. A man as ethereally graceful as he somehow in some mystery known only to God or perhaps to Satan, managed to trip and fall. He twisted at least one ankle — the jury is out on the second one — banged up a wrist, and bruised several ribs.

There may, indeed, have been a stairs involved in the fall.

However it happened, whether he was drunk or tired or distracted in fantasies of his lady love (and what fantasies they were, all tumbling waves of golden hair and soft pale flesh so that heat had coiled beneath his navel and his throat had dried, and he was on the point of having to stop walking anyway in order to, ah, _gain some relief_ before walking became decidedly awkward), the point remains that he fell. And is now more black and blue than translucent porcelain. And the travesty hidden by his mask is, in a twist that the Fates must surely be cackling at, for the first time in the half century he has lived, the _most attractive_ part of him.

(His lady love argues that she has always found him attractive, but even he will grant that she is blinded by her affections towards him. Blinded. Not in any way hypnotized and besides that was only _once_. Blinded.)

Anyway. He will not complain about the stiffness that has manifested in the whole of his body, and which is resolutely refusing to make its starring appearance in the precise position where he would wish it. (Apparently pain is an excellent anti-aphrodisiac, and he makes a mental note to remind himself of this when he is not _distracted by his love’s concerned attentions_.) No. Why would he complain when she is kissing the handful of parts of his anatomy that are not injured?

(Her lips have lingered on the crease of his right hip for some time, so much so that the tightness beneath his navel is slowly returning, but before it can draw her attention she has moved, and her lips are brushing his, and never before in his life has he been so grateful for the mask protecting his face. She has cast the mask aside, has bared him for her eyes, and when his lips part to grant her admittance, she smiles.)


	40. Questions

“Do you think we’re bad people?” The faint whisper pulls Rahim from the edge of sleep, Erik’s voice soft in the darkness. He thought him asleep a while ago, and with how exhausted he’s been the last couple of days, is a little surprised to find him awake. “Rahim?”

What was the question again? It has escaped the grasp of his sluggish brain. Oh, yes. Bad people. How could Erik consider a question like that? Granted, there is so much of their past that he could be referring to. The years in Persia, namely, the men tortured and kill—No. No. He must not let himself think of that tonight. That world is long past them. It cannot touch them now, cannot hurt them now. There is no doubt in his mind that they are not the men they were then, that Erik is not the man he was, and if Erik might have been a bad man then in the eyes of those who did not understand the situation he was in, then he has changed.

“No,” Rahim whispers, and bows his head to press his lips to Erik’s hair. “No. We are not bad men, and you are certainly not a bad man. It is not where you start your life that matters, but where you end up, and whatever you may once have been you are not that man now. You are not a bad man, Erik.”

Erik smiles sadly against his neck. “And what about us, Rahim? What about…what we are? Is that not bad in the eyes of the world?”

Rahim nods, just slightly. “It is to them, but they do not understand. But something like this, Erik, something as good as this could never be bad.” And as he murmurs the words, there is no place for doubt in his mind.


	41. Parting

They have only minutes, before he will be torn away from her, before he will be sent back to the sea. She has known this is coming, has tried not to think about it too long, but he is leaving her, he is leaving. Not by any choice of his own, but he is leaving. He will not be there tonight when she takes her bow, will not be there tomorrow night, or the next, or the next. Will not be there for six months.

Six months.

Never has half a year felt like such a lifetime. But it will be half a year until they can see each other again, can hold each other. Half a year before they can even begin organising their wedding, and tears prickle her eyes but she is trying her best to hold them in. It would not do to cry before he leaves, for that to be the last image he has of her, her tears, trickling down her cheeks. She will hold them in, she must hold them in, and she will shed them only when she is out of his sight. She has promised herself this and she is going to hold herself to it tighter than she has ever held to anything before.

Raoul’s lips brush hers, only a faint pressure, as if he is afraid of hurting her, of breaking her, and she whimpers, presses herself closer to him.

“It’ll go by before you know it,” he whispers, and his voice is hoarse. “I swear. You’ll be so busy, you won’t have time to miss me.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“I know, I know. But you’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine, Christine, and then we’ll be together again. Just six little months.”

“I’ll pray for you.”

“I’ll think of you every day.”

All their little promises, breathed again and again, and the train whistle blows, disturbing them, calling him away.

He kisses her once more, and just as he pulls back she draws him to her once more, and presses another kiss to his cheek.

“Goodbye,” she breathes, the words half-lost. “Goodbye.”


	42. Nightmare Vigil

Corinne is used, now, to waking to Christine’s whimpers. All too used to it, in fact. It happens once a week, sometimes twice. There was the dreadful month where it seemed to happen every other night, but that was early on, and the nightmares are not so very common as they were then.

(Or, if they are, Christine wakes with them less, and does not mention them in the cold light of morning.)

And, oh, how Corinne aches to be able to do something. To take the pain away, the grief, the guilt. She would take it on and bear it herself if she could. Carry it all for Christine and spare her. She has been through so much, too much, more than any girl should rightly suffer. And all of it undeserved! All of it wholly undeserved!

If he was not dead already, Corinne would go down there and kill that demon for causing all of this.

Such thoughts are futile, and she swallows the anger that burns within her, draws Christine closer. She cannot take the pain away, cannot do anything at all to help in any meaningful way, but she can keep her comfortable, keep her safe, and she keeps her arms tight around her, draws her head to her breast so that her ear is pressed to her heart. If she wakes, if the nightmare becomes too much to bear, then the first thing she will hear is Corinne’s heartbeat, and she will know that she is not alone, will know that she is so very far away from all that happened.

Christine’s voice is muffled when she whispers, “I told you not to fall in love with me.” The words catch right at Corinne’s heart, make her stomach churn, but she knows that Christine is not talking to her, knows it because she has heard these words before, has heard her whisper them before in the depths of other nightmares, and knows, suddenly, what it is she is dreaming of.

Raoul, and what happened to him.

And she could wake her, could wake her and spare her. But she has done that before, and it has led to floods of tears, and the nightmares have only come back. And on the nights when she has neglected to wake her the nightmare has passed itself, has eased away, and peace has found her again, and easy dreams.

So Corinne swallows the urge to wake her lover, and presses a kiss, lightly, to her hair. “It’s not your fault,” she whispers, though she knows Christine cannot hear her in her sleep. “None of it is your fault. I promise, my love. I promise.”


	43. Bound

“I assure you, Karim, it is an immensely simple procedure. You simply bend your wrist like this, then you twist and,” and Erik is staring at the cuff on his wrist in disbelief, and with not a small amount of horror. “I don’t understand,” he murmurs, “this usually works.”

It is all Karim can do to stifle a giggle at the look on Erik’s face. He had been so sure of himself, so confident. _I can teach you to wiggle out of handcuffs_ , he said, a twinkle in his eye at the thought of doing something even marginally less than law-abiding.

_Oh, do you plan on my getting arrested sometime soon? That I’m going to need to know how to wiggle out of handcuffs?_

_Not at all, Karim! It is simple an invaluable life skill to have and one that, frankly, I am shocked you have not acquired by now._

Karim was not certain whether to be amused or offended, but he went along with the plan anyway. If only to feel the brush of Erik’s fingers against his wrist as he snapped the cuff closed.

Why, exactly, Erik considered the lesson best taught handcuffed to _each other_ , Karim is not certain. But the fact of the matter is that they _are_ handcuffed to each other, what usually works is resolutely not working, and by the way Erik is searching his pockets, he has misplaced the key.

He has a feeling he should be more upset over all of this than he is, but he is so busy trying not to laugh that he has no room to be in the least bit irritated.

Erik tugs them over to the vanity, pulls open the drawer, and starts rifling through it. “I know I have hairpins here somewhere. Christine’s are always falling out whenever she comes to visit so I’ve been building a collection. I know this is the drawer they’re in. Why are they not in here?” A litany of mutterings, and Karim is biting his lip, struggling to regain his composure.

“Erik,” and his voice is a little unsteady, still trying to stifle the giggling. “Erik, it is not so bad.”

“What do you mean, Karim? Not so bad? This was not supposed to happen!” His voice is high, wild. Karim can hear the panic beneath his words, the undertone of “I fucked up, I fucked up”, and Karim sighs, composure regained. So help him, but he will not put up with this all right.

He leans in, and kisses Erik lightly on the cheek to silence him, and in the same motion lays his free hand on Erik’s arm to stop his hairpin search. Each action has the desired effect, and he smiles. It may be a couple of months since they got together, but sometimes Erik can still be so undone by simple things. “I can think of far worse ways to spend my night than handcuffed to you,” he says softly. “Now. It’s late. I think we should both try to get some sleep. We can find someone to deal with this,” and he holds up their joined hands, “in the morning.”

For one long moment, Erik simply looks at him, and Karim is mildly terrified that Erik will mount some new protest, but eventually he simply nods, a faint smile twitching at his lips. “All right, Karim. All right.”

Of course, they will have to sleep in the same bed, but it’s not as if _that’s_ something they haven’t done before.

And it’s definitely one of the benefits of this situation.


	44. Shelter

She knew it was dangerous to be walking alone that late, especially these days, but she didn’t have enough change in her pockets to pay her fare, and she’d be damned if she spent one more minute in the hospital. So she decided to take her chances. The carving knife she’d taken to carrying (just in case) was safely sheathed under her coat, and Lord help her but if someone tried to interfere with her she _would_ cut them. And everything was going well, the streets quiet and no one had attempted to accost her even as she sang an aria from _Aida_ to herself, until she was ten minutes from home.

The air raid sirens went off.

She should have counted on that happening.

The shriek pierced her skull, and she was still singing as she stuck her fingers in her ears and ran. If she could just make it to a shelter before the bombs started falling—

A crash behind her drowned out her muffled voice, and heart pounding, lungs burning, voice shaking, she dived into the first cellar she found, throwing her hands out to catch herself.

Even as her voice shook, she kept singing, as if by stopping singing the bombs would fall right on top of her. Singing would keep her safe, singing has always kept her safe.

And that is how she finds herself, settling with her back to the wall in a cellar-who-knows-where, still singing _Aida._

She almost jumps out of her skin when a man’s voice joins hers from the shadows. Her voice falters, only for a moment, then picks up again, and he carries on singing as if she never made a mistake at all. The voice is gentle, sweet, and for one mad moment she thinks she has found an angel down here. But the thought disappears as soon as it comes. There can be no angels when there are bombs crashing on children.

So what is he? _Who_ is he? A vagrant? Someone displaced in the bombing? A German spy laying low? Her hand tightens on the handle of her knife.

They finish the aria, and she is just about to ask him to reveal himself when her ears catch a shuffling movement. A flicker in the darkness, and the tiny flame of a lighter shows her a man, half his face wrapped in stained bandages.

His eyes widen to see her, and the light goes out.

“Were you wounded?” she asks, her voice low. The cellar shudders with the crash of another bomb outside.

“It—it was something like that.” His speaking voice is softer than his singing one, so low she can scarcely hear it.

“I’m a nurse. If you want I—I could have a look at it, tend to it.” It is right to offer help, the simple decent thing to do.

But the man sighs, and his voice is faintly roughened as if with tears when he says, “It would be a dearer comfort to me if you would sing. You have a—a very lovely voice.”

“May I—may I ask what your name is?”

A pause and then, “Erik. My name is Erik. And you?”

“Christine.” And she smiles. “Well, if it will help you to feel any way better, then I would be delighted to sing for you, Erik.”

She hums a tune to get her started, and then she starts, the first song that comes to mind. “You go to my head, and you linger like a haunting refrain, and I find you spinning round in my brain, like the bubbles in a glass of champagne…”

She sings several songs, sings until her voice grows rough, until her eyes get heavy, and then she hums, tries to conjure pieces of music from her memory. Popular songs and classical tunes and opera music because if this man – this Erik – knows _Aida_ then surely he knows others. Old folk songs. Some of Papa’s pieces. Hums until she is too tired to hum any more.

The bombs are still falling outside, whining in the distance.

A rustle, and heavy fabric is laid over her, a coat.

“Sleep, Christine,” Erik’s voice is closer now than it was before, beside her ear. “Just sleep, and I’ll keep watch. You’ve been very kind.”

And then he softly starts to hum.


	45. Repercussions

The second bottle of wine was Erik’s idea. The third was Karim’s. It is fair to say that neither of them were thinking clearly at the time. It is equally fair to say that Erik drank the majority of all three bottles. It is a mess of his own devising, and yet he still lies in bed moaning, a pillow over his face to blot out any glimmer of light that might attempt to attack him.

Karim might almost feel sympathetic, if the agony was not mostly self-inflicted.

He, too, is suffering, though not to the same dreadful extent. Unlike Erik, he at least managed to keep his tea down. The thought of anything food-related, however, was more than his poor stomach could bear, and he draws the bedsheets up tighter around him, buries his head in Erik’s shoulder. There had been dinner, and music, and almost-endless quantities of wine. And sloppy kissing, that left the corner of his mouth stained purple from the wine until he washed it off. He is positive there are bruises on his thighs. There are definitely bruises on Erik’s hips in the shape of his hands, the deep imprint of a thumb where each hip meets thigh. And wine-stain kiss marks down his stomach, over each scar, a webbing of them around his navel.

It was a night of wild debauchery, of loving with abandon.

They are not young men anymore, and their aching heads and muscles are testament to that.

“If I die, I’m never talking to you again.” Erik’s voice is rough, muffled with the pillow, and in spite of the pounding in his head, Karim smiles into his shoulder.

“Fair enough. I don’t think I can bear to say two words to you again anyway.”

A huff that might almost be a laugh, and then a groan when that only aggravates Erik’s pain.

Karim kisses his shoulder, and wraps his arm tighter around his waist. “Just try to sleep,” he murmurs. “Sleep will…will blot it all away.”

 


	46. Promises at the End

He is sleeping, now, needing rest after the agonies of the day. She cradles his hand gently in hers, careful not to hurt him, not to inflict any more pain on his already aching body. Even now the creases linger around his mouth, around his eyes, the pain following him into the darkness, and what she would not do to take it away, to bring him comfort, bring him peace.

Peace.

Peace is coming for him soon enough.

Tears prickle her eyes, and it is all she can do to fight them back, to keep them from rolling down her cheeks. What if he wakes? And finds her crying? He has scorned her capacity for tears, her _special talent_ for it, as he called it, but that is behind them now. Everything is behind them except for this, here. This room, this bed, their hands entwined.

It would upset him to see her cry, and so help her but for all that has happened (for all that will happen, sooner than she – than either of them – would wish) but she will not upset him now.

When she left Raoul, when she rushed here, she feared that it might have come to this. That she might be already too late, or be about to be too late. That her haste might not have been enough. And when the Persian ( _Nadir_ , Erik called him, in his rasping weak voice, devoid of its old beauty in the face of his suffering) greeted her, and she saw his red-rimmed eyes, she almost lost her resolve then and there, but she braced herself and carried on and pushed her way into this room that had been hers, that had become Erik’s in her absence, and is now simply _theirs_.

 _Theirs_ , for however short the time is that is left to them.

Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes when she reached his bedside, and she wiped them away with the tips of her fingers, took his hand and he whimpered, his lips twisting. He looked up at her through starry eyes as she combed her fingers through his hair, and those eyes pleaded with her, seemed to say, _if you love me, let me know, before its too late_ (too late, almost too late). And she bowed her head and kissed his forehead, kissed the trails of tears down his cheeks, each kiss a whispering _I do, I do, I do, I love you_ imprinted on his skin, lingering that he might feel it forever, might always know it, always be certain, even when he has gone where she cannot follow. And she reached his mouth, she pressed her lips gently to his and whispered, “I love you, Erik, I love you, I’m sorry.” Two kisses, three, five, ten. Not enough, never enough to fill the hole inside of him (inside of both of them, the same and different) but she kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him, and his fingers gripped hers with surprising strength and she lay down in the bed beside him and drew him into her arms, rubbing him, touching him, anywhere she could, each touch a promise of _I’m here, I’m here and I won’t leave, not any more._

Even though he sleeps, she kisses him still. A line of them across his forehead, pressed together, overlapping, that he might feel them in his dreams, and his body is surprisingly light in her arms, all of that lithe strength lost.

“I love you,” she breathes into his skin, “I love you.” _And I wish I had realised it sooner. I wish I had not been blind. I wish I had not been foolish. I wish so many things, but that we had more time I wish most of all. We should have had time._ But she does not speak them, cannot speak them. Not now. In their very futility they die in her throat, and she kisses him again, her heart swelling with love, with regret, with guilt. “I love you.”


	47. Restoration

It is nearing midnight before Faisal can pull Erik away from the piano. He himself has dozed in his armchair wrapped in the swirling soft melody, and Darius has long-since retired for the night. It is only when Erik's finger slips and hits one jarring note that he concedes defeat, and permits Faisal to help him to bed. And Faisal really should have put his foot down earlier and sent him to bed but he simply could not bear to take the joy and wonder away from Erik that he is able to play his music again now that his lungs have sufficiently recovered, though it will be a little longer before he can sing as he used to.

In their own bedchamber, and the lamplight simmering low, Faisal helps Erik to undress and pull on his soft cotton nightshirt (Erik protesting all the while that he is _not an invalid, thank you_ and Faisal hushing him by pressing a soft kiss to his cheek) before himself undressing and joining him in their bed, turning down the lamp. Erik is already half-dozing, his fingers curled loosely upon Faisal's pillow. For a moment, Faisal permits his gaze to linger on the face of his dear love, slack now with on-coming sleep, his dark eyelashes lightly brushing the top of his cheek, lips slightly parted. His throat is tight, filled with feelings and words that he cannot speak because the words cannot capture the depth of the feelings and the soft ache in his heart, the desire to hold onto Erik, to hold onto this moment and never let him go. There are no tears that sting his eyes, not now, not when he shed them all with sheer relief the night that Erik's fever broke at last, but he cannot speak and so he cups Erik's cheek gently in the palm of his hand, and presses one soft kiss to his forehead, and folds him tight and safe in his arms and lets the beating of his heart against Erik's ear whisper the words that his voice cannot.


	48. Following

Raoul is only on the boat two days when Christine resolves to follow him. It might be the maddest, most impulsive, most ridiculous thing she has ever done. Not even marrying Erik was as crazy as this. She knew with certainty that that was the right thing to do and she has never regretted it, but this?

This is something wholly different.

But she could not, in good conscience, let Raoul go alone. And that simple fact is enough to make her mind up.

She poses the question to Erik that very evening. They are between operas. Closing night was only last week and rehearsals have not yet begun for the next one (Tristan and Isolde, but not Erik’s interpretation of it), so it is the perfect time to make such a suggestion.

“I think we should follow him.”

Her voice is strong in the stillness of the room, and out of the side of her eye she sees Erik lower his newspaper, regard her warily, but she does not look up from her needlework.

“To America?”

She nods. “It is cruel to let him make such a trip alone.”

They both know what she is referring to. The terrible state Raoul came to them in one night, drunk and stumbling and crying, and the whole story spilled out. How he loved a man when he was away, how the man died and they buried him by the bank of a river. They already knew about the dinosaurs, and the pieces fell together easily as she rocked him, his head on her shoulder as he wept, Erik standing helplessly behind him still holding the bottle of cognac. They both sat up all night with him, talking to him, drawing out every story he was able to tell, until he fell asleep by the fire and Christine covered him and leaned into Erik, watching over him.

To love someone that much.

To lose them so soon.

If it were her and Erik—

No. It is wrong to let Raoul go alone, when they all know that the first place he will set out for is that lonely grave on the Powder River.

Erik folds his paper and nods.

“I’ll make the arrangements.”


End file.
